GOP Senate group to study possible Medicaid expansion

Jun. 26, 2013

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Free Press Medical Writer

State Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, has formed a work group to study possible Medicaid expansion in Michigan — an issue that he said is not dead, despite a decision last week by senators to leave for break without taking a vote on it.

The six members are all Republicans but represent different views, said Richardville’s spokeswoman Amber McCann.

They will meet over the summer, but no dates are scheduled. The work group’s meeting dates won’t be tied to July 3, the date on which a session has to be called procedurally; senators aren’t expected to attend at this time, McCann said.

The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Township, will lead the group. Although the federal government picks up most of the cost initially, expansion could cost the state $150 million to $200 million a year, Kahn has said.

“That’s among the things that need to be clarified. … Who pays it? Who benefits? Who wins? Who loses?” he said Wednesday.

It’s unclear whether the Senate would have approved Medicaid last week had it been brought up for a vote, despite proponents’ claims they had enough votes, Kahn said.

The decision last Thursday to adjourn without bringing the issue up to a vote enraged those who say an estimated 470,000 low-income Michiganders could gain coverage Jan. 1 under an expanded Medicaid. The cost of the extra caseload would be carried largely by the federal government under federal health care reform. Opponents worry about the cost and continued expansion of the federal government under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who said there were enough votes to pass the expansion had Senate leadership allowed the vote to take place, lashed out during a news conference last week even as senators were leaving their offices, calling on them to “take a vote, not a vacation.”

That’s unfair, Kahn said.

Senators have been portrayed as taking a summer break, when in fact he is attending meetings and talking with constituents in his district: “I don’t call this a vacation,” he said.